The par-5 sixth hole at Bay Hill Club & Lodge is one of the more famous par 5s in golf.
There’s only about 350 yards between the tee box and the green, but between that is a giant lake that snuggles the left side of the fairway from tee box to green. It’s an incredibly difficult tee shot and approach, but players can be rewarded with two strong shots.
The same can’t be said for Tommy Fleetwood, who carded a 10 on the hole Friday during the second round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational.
Fleetwood’s tee shot found the fairway, but he hit not one, not two, but three approach shots into the lake before finally finding the putting surface with his eighth shot.
Two putts later, and Fleetwood walked away with a 10.
Tommy Fleetwood carded a 10 at Bay Hill on No. 6. (Photo: PGA Tour)
It was a struggle for Fleetwood on the opening nine, as he carded a 9-over 45. Even for the best players in the world, Bay Hill can be a beast.
One year after his U.S. Amateur win, Palmer won his first Tour title and began to usher in golf’s new era.
(Editor’s note: This story originally appeared in the May 9, 2014 issue of Golfweek)
ORLANDO – He was a 24-year-old paint salesman living in Cleveland, just seven months removed from a three-year stint in the Coast Guard. This was before his army of adoring fans, before his patented charges, and before he made golf cool.
Arnold Palmer, the son of a greenkeeper, entered the national sporting consciousness at the 1954 U.S. Amateur by defeating Robert Sweeny, 1 up, at the Country Club of Detroit.
Ask him to recount his earliest glory days and Palmer has been known to reach for a black hardcover copy of a 64-page book detailing the significance of this triumph. The cursive lettering of the title, written in gold-leaf, says it all: “The Turning Point.”
“That’s what it was in my life,” Palmer says all these years later seated in his office above the locker room at Bay Hill Club. “It gave me the confidence that I was ready to turn professional and play the PGA Tour.”
One year later, Palmer won the first of his 62 Tour titles and began to usher in golf’s modern era. But at the 54th U.S. Amateur, Palmer, who was as slender as wire and strong as cable, was a dark horse among the 1,278 entries that included Billy Jo Patton, Frank Stranahan, and Harvie Ward. Even that week, Palmer injected excitement into the championship with his high-wire act. Jimmy Gill, Palmer’s 16-year-old caddie, recalled the stir of fascination that Palmer’s go-for-broke style caused.
“If he missed the shot, he knew he would make it up later,” Gill said. “He had something about him. That walk of his, the way he attacked the ball.”
Palmer survived a daunting gantlet of foes on a par-70 course that had been stretched for the competition to 6,875 yards by Robert Trent Jones Sr. Palmer kidded USGA officials that they must have wanted him out of the tournament early. He edged Frank Strafaci, a seven-time Met (N.Y.) amateur champion, and John Veghte, a Florida State golfer, 1 up, in the first two rounds. Then in the fifth round, just to reach the quarterfinals, Palmer faced Stranahan. “Nemesis is a good word to describe our relationship on the course,” Palmer said.
Indeed, Stranahan, 32, had Palmer’s number. Previously, he smoked Palmer 12 and 11, in the 36-hole semifinal at the North and South Amateur and at the 1950 Amateur by a 4- and-3 margin. This time Palmer settled things, 3 and 1. As the golfers walked off the green, Stranahan said to Palmer, “That’s it. I’m turning pro tomorrow.”
Next, Palmer faced Don Cherry, the 1953 Canadian Amateur champ and a crooner, who had performed the night before at the nearby Dakota Inn. As Jimmy Demaret once said to him, “Don, the golfers say you’re a singer and the singers say you’re a golfer. So what the hell are you?” On this occasion, he was another tough out for Palmer. Cherry held a 2-up lead with seven holes to go but lost his rhythm and the match, 1 up. Afterward, Palmer phoned his parents in Latrobe, Pa., to tell them he had reached the 36-hole semifinal. They hopped into their car and drove eight hours to be there.
“That meant more to me than you can imagine,” Palmer said.
Arnold Palmer holds a picture of himself from the 1954 U.S. Amateur. (Photo by Tracy Wilcox/Golfweek)
His parents arrived in time to see the longest semifinal match in the history of the Amateur at the time. Palmer had defeated Ed Meister, a 38-year-old magazine publisher, in the Ohio Amateur just a few weeks earlier. The rematch was a seesaw affair in which Meister and Palmer traded the lead on seven occasions. All square on the 36th hole, Palmer overshot the green and faced looming disaster. Never fear because Palmer floated a sand wedge that halted within 5 feet of the hole. How good was it? The club placed a plaque on the spot where the ball lay buried and Palmer called it “the shot of my tournament.” Still, he crouched over a touchy, downhill slider in his pigeon-toed stance needing to make the putt to force extra holes.
“If I had missed it, I’d be gone,” Palmer said. “Who knows what would have happened in my life? I probably would have continued on playing amateur golf, and then I don’t know.”
But Palmer sank the putt, and the match continued at the first hole, where Meister had a 4-foot putt for victory. Did Palmer think his run was over?
“I never think that way,” Palmer said. “If he had had me, we wouldn’t be talking here now.”
On the third extra hole, Palmer closed out the match, muscling a 300-yard drive, reaching the par 5 in two and making birdie. That set up Palmer against Sweeny, the 1937 British Amateur champion, in the final.
“To look at us side by side,” Palmer wrote in “A Golfer’s Life,” “you might well have thought we hailed from different galaxies.”
Sweeny, 43, was a millionaire investment banker, the quintessential American playboy splitting time between Palm Beach, Florida, New York, and London. As a member at Seminole Golf Club, Sweeny played matches with Ben Hogan each winter as the future Hall of Famer tuned up for the Masters, and famously offered Hogan a stroke per side.
Thanks to a red-hot putter, Sweeny jumped out to an early 3-up lead on Palmer. As they departed the fourth green, Sweeny threw an arm around Palmer’s shoulder and, attempting to lighten the mood, said to him, “You can be sure of one thing: I can’t go on like this much longer.”
Arnold Palmer watches the flight of his tee shot on the first hole at The Country Club during the 1963 U.S. Open. (AP Photo)
Palmer pulled ahead at the 32nd hole, stretched the lead to 2 up a hole later but 3-putted the 35th hole to prolong the match. When Sweeny’s drive at the last disappeared into the trees and thick rough right, he couldn’t recover and conceded the match on the green. Moments later, James D. Standish Jr., the tournament’s general chairman, gave the signal and a 12-piece brass band located on the clubhouse terrace played “Hail to the Chief.”
Tears streamed down the face of Palmer’s mother, Doris, and he hugged her. “Where’s Pap?” Palmer asked. Deacon Palmer was lingering by the scoreboard. Six decades later, Palmer still remembers his father’s long level gaze and the way his voice went soft as he mouthed these words: “You did pretty good, boy.”
Palmer’s victory set a chain of events in motion. Instead of returning to selling paint – “That might have ruined my life if I had been any good at it,” he said – Palmer played the next week in bandleader Fred Waring’s invitational, the Waite Memorial, in Shawnee-on-the-Delaware, Pennsylvania. His boss gave him time off to play the tournament only because he’d won the Amateur. There, Palmer met Winifred Walzer, who would become his wife of 45 years until her death in 1999.
“I thought she was a rich socialite and that if I married her, I’d just be able to play golf all the time. She thought I was a rich, young executive that could give her the lifestyle she wanted. We were both wrong,” Palmer wrote in “The Turning Point.”
Soon, the young couple were engaged. Almost three months after the championship on Nov. 17, 1954, Palmer announced his intentions to turn pro. “I can’t overlook my life ambition to follow in the footsteps of my father,” Palmer wrote to the USGA. “We both have counted on this since I first started playing golf 14 years ago. My good fortune in competition this year indicates it is time to turn to my chosen profession.”
A day later, he signed an endorsement contract with Wilson Sporting Goods for $5,000 plus a $2,000 signing bonus. Palmer heeded the advice of his father. “Go and play the way you know how and you’ll be all right,” he said.
The next spring, Palmer made his debut at the Masters, where soldiers from Fort Gordon in Augusta discovered an American original, and golf would never be the same.
The purse at the API is $20 million with $3.6 million going to the winner.
On a day when the winds were down, the scores were low.
After the opening round of the 2024 Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill Club & Lodge in Orlando, Florida, it’s Shane Lowry atop the leaderboard after an opening 6-under 66. Lowry started the back nine birdie-birdie-eagle-birdie and holds the first-round lead by one over Hideki Matsuyama, winner of the Genesis Invitational, and Justin Lower.
Sahith Theegala, Russell Henley, Sam Burns and Lee Hodges are in a group sitting T-4 at 4 under. Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas and Will Zalatoris highlight those at 3 under.
From tee times to TV and streaming info, here’s everything you need to know for the second round of the 2024 Arnold Palmer Invitational. All times listed are ET.
McIlroy said he’s too much of a traditionalist to join LIV but still wants golf to reunite.
While some took his tongue-in-cheek comments last week seriously, Rory McIlroy has set the record straight regarding his interest (or lack thereof) in LIV Golf.
“It’s not for me. I’m too much of a traditionalist,” McIlroy said in an interview with ESPN. “I love winning golf tournaments and looking at the trophy and seeing that Sam Snead won this trophy or Ben Hogan or Gene Sarazen or Jack Nicklaus or Gary Player, Tiger Woods or Nick Faldo, whoever it is, the people that came before me. That to me is a big deal in our game. If we were to all put our heads together and be like, ‘Okay, what can we do to all come back together and move forward and be a little more cohesive?’ Then I would sort of be for that.”
At last week’s Cognizant Classic in The Palm Beaches, McIlroy was asked about some comments made by Andrew “Chubby” Chandler, McIlroy’s former manager. Chandler insinuated McIlroy’s softened stance on Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund being involved in pro golf could be a sign he’s ready to take his talents to LIV, and when asked about the comments, McIlroy couldn’t help but smile and laugh.
“I think he’s writing a book, so there is that. I spoke to Chubby, might have saw him in the Middle East at the start of the year. Never know. He might know a few things. Who knows,” McIlroy quipped at the time.
Scottie Scheffler changed putters Thursday, but the club continued to let him down.
ORLANDO, Fla. — Scottie Scheffler changed putters Thursday, but the club continued to let him down. Golf Channel’s Brandel Chamblee is less concerned with the style of putter Scheffler uses than fixing his stroke.
Scheffler, the world No. 1 and 2022 Arnold Palmer Invitational champion, shot 2-under 70 at Bay Hill Club & Lodge despite taking 31 putts. That included lipping out a birdie putt of inside 4 feet on the 16th hole. Scheffler lost more than a stroke and a half to the field on the greens, which ranked 55th in the 69-man Arnold Palmer Invitational field. According to stats man Rick Gehman, Scheffler lost more than 1.5 strokes putting in a round for the seventh time in 20 rounds this season. After signing autographs for fans, he headed straight to the practice-putting green to work on his stroke and declined to answer questions about switching from a blade to a mallet putter.
Last month, at the Genesis Invitational, Rory McIlroy joined the CBS broadcast after he finished his round and suggested Scheffler should consider such a move.
“For me, going to a mallet was a big change. I really persisted with the blade putter for a long time. But I just feel like your stroke has to be so perfect to start the ball on line, where the mallet just gives you a little bit more margin for error. That, to me, gave me confidence that I could go forward with that knowing that even if I don’t put a perfect stroke on it, the ball’s not going to go too far off line,” McIlroy said. “So, I’d love to see Scottie try a mallet, but selfishly for me, you know, Scottie does everything else so well that, you know, he’s giving the rest of us a chance.”
Scheffler inserted a TaylorMade Spider Tour X putter into the bag this week. Despite ball-striking that rivaled some of the best seasons of Tiger Woods last year, Scheffler ranked 162nd in Strokes Gained: Putting. He began working with putting coach Phil Kenyon before the Ryder Cup in late September and his confidence in the short stick seemed to be on the rise after avoiding a single three putt or missing a putt inside five feet for the first 71 holes en route to winning the Hero World Challenge in December. That week he switched to a heel-toe weighted blade made by little-known puttermaker Olson Putter Co. But this season, he ranks 144th in SG: Putting entering the week.
Chamblee, for one, expressed concern with Scheffler working with “a highly technical” coach in Kenyon.
“I have no doubt that Phil Kenyon knows a lot of different things as it relates to putting, but he’s been working with him since before the Ryder Cup, so, we’re sneaking up on more than half a year. I feel like most players who make substantive changes in their putting, I think you’d know within 10 minutes on the putting green,” Chamblee said.
“I think Scottie drags the handle going back and subconsciously you have to create energy from somewhere else and so his grip pressure changes and he has this over-the-top loop and change of direction, which is the reason he hits the ball in the heel. Most great putters let the putter head get behind their hands in the backstroke so the grip end of the putter doesn’t move as much. That’s what I’d like to see. All you have to do is go look at the greatest putters of all time.”
So, the endless pursuit of trying to improve one’s putting continues for Scheffler, who trails by three strokes after one round and will be the defending champion next week at the Players Championship.
He has got another round on Friday to enjoy the company of playing solo.
ORLANDO, Fla. — The Arnold Palmer Invitational started Thursday morning with a single leading off the field of 69 in the signature event at Bay Hill Club & Lodge. It’s a rare instance – no one seems to remember the last time that happened – and it caused a bit of an uproar on social media with the likes of Colt Knost imploring, “What are we doing here? Let one more player in,” and Andrew Novak, who has three straight top 10s on Tour, proclaiming, “I’ll play as marker this week, but if I top 10 again y’all gotta pay me. Deal?”
Nick Dunlap, the 20-year-old rookie, making his fourth start as a professional following his victory as an amateur in January at the American Express, drew the role of playing solo at 7:45 a.m. Thursday and 10:45 a.m. Friday. Viktor Hovland, for one, was perplexed when told of the odd circumstances.
“I’ve never done that before,” Hovland said. “I think that feels a little bit weird but at the same time that’s like going out and practicing for yourself. Yeah, it would be weird.”
Dunlap agreed that his initial reaction was that’s “weird.” But his tune had changed after going out and shooting a rollercoaster round of even-par 72.
“Personally, I like it as weird as that is to say,” Dunlap said. “To put it in perspective I was playing foursomes in college and it’s a lot better to be playing as a single than a foursome.”
Dunlap was sent out as a single because Tony Finau elected not to play in the event leaving an odd number of players this week. Under Tour regulations, there is no alternate list for a player out of Finau’s category. (This rule should be revised to fill out the field, as Knost suggested, even if it means allowing an extra sponsor invite.) Another option would have been to send him out as a three-ball in the final group, an idea Justin Thomas suggested would be a viable solution.
“These events don’t have alternates for a reason, you have to qualify to get in them,” he said. “I’m sure there’s a different or better way to go about it, but it is very strange.”
API chief referee Ken Tackett explained to Golf Digest how Dunlap was selected as the most reasonable player to go off first as a single. “Nick was the only one in his category [as a tournament winner], and we went to him and explained it, and he was fine with it,” Tackett said.
“They did all they could do with the criteria for getting into (signature) events is pretty stern and they want to stick with that,” Dunlap said, defending the decision. “I’m just happy to be here.”
But Dunlap admitted it took him a little time to get into his routine, and he made a triple bogey at the third hole. Asked what club he used when his ball landed in the water, he replied, “Which time?”
It was driver off the tee and a 6-iron for those scoring at home. “I didn’t like the start,” Dunlap said. “I was struggling staying in a couple and stayed in them too long and pulled them.”
But after being 4 over at the turn, he responded with five birdies coming home, including at the final two holes. Asked whether he would have preferred to play with a marker, a common occurrence at men’s majors when there is an odd number of players after the 36-hole, Dunlap said no. (He did play with a marker when he shot 60 in the third round of The American Express.)
“The marker wouldn’t have been another professional, it would’ve been an amateur and hate to say it but a lot of people don’t understand how hard this place is,” said Dunlap. “I wouldn’t have had the time I had today.”
“It was a little weird,” he added. “It took me a second to get in a groove, but it allowed me to take as much time as I needed.”
He has got another round on Friday to enjoy the company of playing solo.
Mackenzie Hughes took the term “bank shot” from basketball and applied it to his first round of golf on Thursday at the 2024 Arnold Palmer Invitational. No. 3 at Bay Hill Club and Lodge in Orlando has water down the entire left side of the hole, and Hughes did well to avoid it off the tee as his drive found the right rough. His approach 164 yards out was flirting with the water as his ball landed on the bank of the lake and ricocheted off some rocks and onto the green.
A shot that should’ve splashed into the water instead left a 7-foot birdie putt for Hughes (spoiler alert, he missed).
“It’s been a little bit frustrating so far this year.”
ORLANDO, Fla. — Six months after Viktor Hovland won the Tour Championship, the FedEx Cup and a bundle of cash, he fired one coach, hired another and set off in pursuit of flushing his irons with the consistency and precision he “cherishes.”
“It’s been a little bit frustrating so far this year,” said Hovland, who has yet to record a top-10 finish in three starts this season, speaking at his pre-tournament press conference on Wednesday ahead of the Arnold Palmer Invitational. “Feel like my swing hasn’t been quite as good as it has been in previous years, so it’s been, felt like I’ve tried to prioritize just being home and practicing, putting a lot of work in. Don’t really want to fight through something while playing, it’s just not that fun, and I don’t see the point of it.”
That explains why Hovland withdrew from the WM Phoenix Open after finishing T-58 at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, which was reduced to 54 holes in February.
What’s harder to explain is his musical chairs among instructors – from Jeff Smith to Joe Mayo and now taking his tips from former Tour pro Grant Waite.
“I’m a very curious guy. I like to ask questions,” Hovland said. “Sometimes when you ask a question and you get some answers, that leads you down a different path and opens up some new questions and you pursue a different path. I just want to kind of see where it goes. I always like to improve and expand my knowledge, and it just happened to lead me down to Grant Waite.”
Hovland is 26 years old and the winner of six Tour titles. He first played the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill Club & Lodge in 2020 after winning the U.S. Amateur. He’s finished tied for second and tied for 10th the last two seasons. When asked to describe what has been off with his game, he said, “It’s just the mechanics of the swing. Just haven’t been able to hit the shots that I want to.”
And that matters to Hovland almost as much as his score.
“I guess that’s kind of the insane part of my brain is that I just enjoy flushing a golf shot,” he said. “Obviously, we’re out here to compete and win tournaments, but I really just cherish being able to hit the shots exactly the way I want to. I think it’s a better predictor of how you’re going to play in the future.”
Hovland finished the 2022-23 season, during which he also won in May at the Memorial, with back-to-back wins at the BMW Championship, where he shot a final-round 61, and at the Tour Championship, and followed with a starring role in Europe’s Ryder Cup victory. So, parting ways with Mayo, who he credits with helping him improve his short game, made for an odd decision (not that his ball striking had many holes when he departed Smith for Mayo). Hovland clearly isn’t a proponent of the old saying that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
“When you’re seeing a shot and your swing is not producing those shots, it becomes very tough to compete, especially at this level,” Hovland said, noting that he had been playing defensive golf instead of swinging with confidence. So, he’s spent countless hours reviewing old swings, especially from 2019 when he first turned pro as well as early 2021, which he tabbed as when he was swinging it best.
Viktor Hovland of Norway talks with Luke Donald of England during the pro-am ahead of the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard at Arnold Palmer Bay Hill Golf Course on March 06, 2024 in Orlando, Florida. (Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)
“Kind of seeing the evolution of my swing. It’s very interesting,” he said. “I’ve had a lot of multiple different patterns.”
Hovland’s swing may remain a work-in-progress — “I’m just pressuring the ground a little bit differently,” he explained matter-of-factly — but his accurate driving and mid-iron excellence is why he’s usually in the hunt at Arnie’s Place. The question remains: Will he have enough confidence to make the shots he’s capable of in crunch time?
“If I can stand on the range or on a golf course, see a shot and execute that shot, that gives me confidence,” he said. “The most important thing is that you see the shots that you’re hitting and you have belief that you’re going to do that repeatedly.”
The 2024 Arnold Palmer Invitational gets underway Thursday at Bay Hill Club & Lodge in Orlando, Florida. It’s the second stop of four on the PGA Tour’s Florida Swing, and it’s the latest signature event on the schedule.
Most of the top players in the world will be there, including past champions Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, defending champ Kurt Kitayama and others.
That was the question proposed to numerous Tour players ahead of the 2024 Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill Club & Lodge in Orlando, Florida. The PGA Tour posted a video a little more than a minute long on its social media accounts Wednesday, and it led to some fun answers.
Up first was Rory McIlroy, who said he thought it was Sam Ryder. Also asked the question were Tom Kim, Max Homa, Ludvig Aberg and Xander Schauffele, among numerous others.
The name that popped up the most? Take a minute and watch the hilarious video below to find out:
